Volume II: Filmography

 

PEDRO, THE PUNK POET

 

(Falstaff)

March 23, 1916 (Thursday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Comedy

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Jay C. Yorke (Pedro), Frances Keyes (actress in wild West show), Carey L. Hastings (landlady)

 

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, March 18, 1916:

"Pedro was the only poet in Pumpkinville. Talent was scarce, and Pedro was always ready to recite some of his many masterpieces. Perhaps this explains why all his friends advised him to go to the Great City and become famous. Anyway, he harkened to their counsel and went to town, intending to set it afire - poetically. Day by day Pedro found his stock of money growing smaller. Finally he was dead broke. Had it not been for his fish line he would have starved, for he was too proud to beg. But he hooked bottles of milk from adjoining window sills, and when his landlady put a dog in his room to keep him out, he sold the dog to an actress in a wild West show. An editor 'went crazy' over his poems, so crazy that it looked for a time as if he were headed for an asylum, and a truckman hired him to write a poem to his sweetheart, but the girl threw the truckman down after she read the effusion. All of which explains why Pedro went back to Pumpkinville, and why he is again the star feature at the village entertainments."

 

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, April 1, 1916:

"A burlesque number, featuring a long-haired poet who goes about reading his doggerel rhymes. He is run out of an editorial office, gets in trouble with the landlady, and has a hard time generally. This hasn't much plot, but is quite pleasing in some respects."

# # #

 

Copyright © 1995 Q. David Bowers. All Rights Reserved.